He looks up at the tap on the door frame, peers at me over the chic black rim of his glasses.

“Need a minute with you,” I mouth.

He gestures for me to wait with an index finger and mouths back, “Give me a second.”

I ignore him, march in and shove my phone into his hand. He takes it and nonchalantly glances at the image on the screen, then away, then back at it, a true double take, and stares at it for the longest time, like it’ll morph into something less shocking if he burrows his gaze into it long enough. When he looks up, I expect to catch surprise or anger or some flash of emotion on his face, but his expression is full of resignation.

“I need a few minutes. Call me back in five,” he says into the phone, then drops the line. He carefully slides his frames down his temples, and the way he glowers at me is almost as if he is more bothered that I’ve interrupted him than he is by the picture. “What was it for?”

The question sets my spine on fire, not the words but the shrug in his tone. “Who cares? You can’t have criminals working for you, Dad. Cancel her interview.”

He frowns and stares back down at the picture on the screen, his brows slightly furrowed as if he’s sifting through a pile of complicated thoughts, then he shifts away to grab something off his desk. “She seemed so nice at the party. Sharp. Well-rounded...”

“That’s because you wouldn’t take your eyes off her ass,” I mumble, a little too loudly.

He glances up and eyes me with a suspicious lift of his brow. “What was that?”

I spread my arms wide. “You can’t find her record online to see what she did. It’s sealed. That means it had to be bad.”

“All the records of minors are sealed. Doesn’t matter what the charge was. That means nothing.” He continues to look at me with his brow lifted. “How’d you even get this?”

I bypass his question, take my phone back and hold it closer to his face, tilting it so he can look right into her delinquent eyes. “She’s from Newark, Dad. They’re all gangbangers, wannabe rappers and criminals down there. She’s no different. You can’t bring that to Van Doren.”

He’s quiet for a moment. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. Then he rises to his feet and looks down at me.

“Newark is west, hon.” He smiles, trying to appear playful, but failing. “You sure do get your sense of direction from your mother.”

I clench my teeth. Even in death, this fucker scorns her.

He stops at the edge of the room. “These damn diversity quotas. Well, I tried. If none of them last, there’s nothing I can do about it.”